Biography

Franne Lee is a well-known award-winning production and costume designer for theatre, TV, and Film. In the past decade she has also gained a reputation as an artist.

Franne Lee’s professional design career started in the theatre in New York, with Andre Gregory’s “Alice in Wonderland,” for which she received an Obie Award for costumes. Her many Broadway shows include Hal Prince’s productions of “Candide” and “Sweeney Todd,” for both she received Tony Awards for Costume and Set Design.

Franne’s many TV credits include the first five years of Saturday Night Live, for which she won an Emmy award for Production/Costume Design. She’s created the looks for many of the best-loved SNL characters, such as the Bees, the Coneheads, the Blues Brothers, the Nerds, Emily Litella, and Roseanne Roseannadanna. She moved to LA in 1995, where she worked on “The Stephanie Miller Show” for Disney-Buena Vista, “Sherman Oaks” for Showtime, and Roseanne’s talk show for King World.

In 1999, Franne moved to Nashville, where she did production design for TV, Music Videos, Commercials, and local theatre, she created the costumes for “Waiting for Godot” for the People’s Branch Theatre. For the Nashville Shakespeare Festival she designed the costumes for “Hamlet” and “Romeo & Juliet”. She was also an adjunct professor at Belmont Univ. in the Theatre Dept. for 10 years and at Watkins School of Art, Design and Film teaching Film Design for 8 years.

In the fall of 2008 she was a participant in “Curtain Call: Celebrating A Century of 100 Outstanding Woman Designers for Live Performance,” at Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts, where they displayed her designs for “Sweeney Todd”, “Candide” “A Winter’s Tale,” and “Gilda Radner Live.”

She moved to Madison Wi. in the fall of 2013, and is working with a few theatre companies in the area. She just finished designing costumes for “From Up Here”, a play for the Forward Theater Co. This last summer she did the costumes for “Kiss me Kate” for the U. of W. Waukesha Campus, and at the beginning of 2015 you will get to see her costumes for “The Music Lesson” for the Children’s Theater of Madison, at the Overture Center.

She is very happy to be once again reunited with family here in Madison, Wi.

Artist Statement

﻿I remember when it started ---- me and making pictures with stuff. Now I know I was making collage, but it was always more than collage for me....a painting of a man holding a real wood and paper sign... an old door turned into a carved shelf with a lady smiling upon it...
When I was a little girl, I would go to my dad's workshop and pick up discarded stuff from the floor and the tables. "Dad can I have this and that and this, too?" I walked home dragging my bag of treasure from Dad's shop I played with them, I glued them together, painted them and furnished my doll house. I was a junker from an early age.
Junking turned into a career designing costumes and sets for theatre, TV and film. I found wonderful shops with amazing things for these productions and I didn't have to pay for them!! I remember going up to a stranger's house and asking if i could buy their old ford pickup and rotted porch rocking chair. Still a junker but on a bigger scale and with a bigger budget.
And now I have come full circle with the creation of the Plowhaus in the fall of 2001 with my friends, JD Wilkes, and Lesley Paterson-Marx. Once again, I'm asking for castoff stuff, hauling it home and making things with it.
I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I enjoyed finding and making them. I remember when it started ---- me and making pictures with stuff. Now I know I was making collage, but it was always more than collage for me....a painting of a man holding a real wood and paper sign... an old door turned into a carved shelf with a lady smiling upon it...

swings and roundabouts

sitting it out

how to contact franne lee

A Bit About Franne

Franne Lee is a well-known award-winning production and costume designer for theatre, TV, and Film. In the past decade she has also gained a reputation as an artist.

Franne Lee’s professional design career started in the theatre in New York, with Andre Gregory’s “Alice in Wonderland,” for which she received an Obie Award for costumes. Her many Broadway shows include Hal Prince’s productions of “Candide” and “Sweeney Todd,” for both she received Tony Awards for Costume and Set Design.
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Where to See Franne's Work...

“From Up Here” @ The Overture Center

Franne’s Costume Design work for “From Up Here”, a play produced by the Forward Theater Co. will be seen at the Overture Center in Madison, WI. Opening Thurs. Nov. 6, through Sun. Nov. 23, 2014. Come see her work and the work of other talented people in this production.